In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, tribal nations campaigned hard — though with mixed results — to ensure that the federal government continued to fulfill its treaty obligations.
And they were able to prevent the shutdown’s worst impacts on Indigenous communities, largely due to tribal self-determination policies that have created a $47 billion gaming industry and an accompanying reserve of economic and political capital.
“We may disagree on tactics, we can find common ground on the safety of health, and economic opportunity,” said Mark Macarro, president of National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), before the shutdown. “And those aren’t partisan goals; those are goals that unite us as people. We saw commitment not only from long-standing champions, but from new ones.”
Meanwhile, funding and operations for the Indian Health Service, as well as for classrooms under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has remained at 100%.
“IHS will continue to operate business-as-usual during a lapse of appropriations,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press secretary Emily G. Hilliard said, adding that “100% of IHS staff will report for work, and health-care services across Indian Country will not be impacted.” Across Health and Human Services, 41% of employees were furloughed, but several tribal IHS facilities in the West have reported normal operations.
According to the National Indian Health Board, the 14,801 IHS employees will be paid using money approved and distributed by Congress earlier in the year through advanced appropriations as well as other sources.
Under the U.S. Department of the Interior, however, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has taken a significant hit. The BIA furloughed 1,154 of its 3,126 employees across 38 states, and hundreds of take-home vehicles for government workers are currently parked and gathering dust outside the Albuquerque Southwest Regional Office.
Nonetheless, according to Janel Broderick, the agency’s principal deputy assistant secretary, Indian Affairs remains committed to upholding the federal government’s obligations to tribes. The BIA will continue to provide leadership and support for critical services during the lapse in appropriations, she said, and “education, law enforcement, child and adult protection, emergency road maintenance, wildland fire response and other critical services will continue.”
In September, weeks before the federal shutdown, tribal nations exerted all their political and economic capital and tried to obtain some protection for the thousands of federal employees who work with tribal governments and their citizens.
“Bipartisanship is not a slogan, it’s real, and it still exists, and it’s the only path that works.”
A delegation led by NCAI spent three days lobbying Congress, focusing primarily on the new leadership in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is responsible for crafting legislation and funding priorities to support tribal sovereignty.
“Bipartisanship is not a slogan, it’s real, and it still exists, and it’s the only path that works,” Macarro said.
Then, just hours before the Oct. 1 deadline for passing a budget and preventing a shutdown, the Coalition for Tribal Sovereignty sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, seeking assurances that tribal government workers across the country would continue to be paid. The letter, which was addressed to OMB Director Russell Vought, outlined how, under the Anti-Deficiency Act, tribal operations at hospitals, schools and other services are required to meet U.S. tribal treaty obligations.
Doing so would “ensure that federal employees providing services related to the ‘safety of human life or protection of property’ are exempt from government shutdown furloughs,” the letter read. It was signed by 26 organizations representing tribal interests across the country in gaming, child welfare, education, health care and public safety.
As Vought and the OMB directed federal agencies to begin preparing for the shutdown, more than 1,000 people from tribal governments across the country joined a tense conference call with NCAI, urgently seeking more information.
Elizabeth Carr, who served as the first tribal adviser with OMB under President Joe Biden, outlined the powerful role Vought’s agency plays in enabling tribal nations to survive a potential shutdown.
“OMB is an agency shrouded in secrecy,” she said, noting that it had determined that reductions in force would be allowed during a shutdown, something that could have serious long-term impacts.
While Indigenous leaders did not achieve all their goals, their intensive lobbying did produce some victories for tribal sovereignty.
Sources at the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation and the Coquille Indian Tribe are reporting business as usual. In the past, the Yakama Nation has continued to work normally during government shutdowns. As it is, much of its current work is at the state and local level.
And the Navajo Nation has benefited from the government’s decision to continue to allow coal lease sales. On Monday, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company bid $186,000 to lease 167 million tons of coal in Montana from the Bureau of Land Management.
Governments like that of the Navajo Nation, which operate on an annual budget calendar, have enough funding to get through December so they can keep operating during a shutdown, federal Indian health policy expert Tyler Scribner told tribal leaders on Sept. 31. He warned that there were other challenges, though.
“Even with funding mechanisms to keep tribal programs operating, the staff administering may not be deemed essential under federal government agency plans,” he said.
The longest federal shutdown in U.S. history, which occurred during Trump’s first term, lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 — a total of 35 days. This year, when Congress was unable to come to terms, the federal government shut down at midnight on Oct. 1, marking the third government shutdown under Donald Trump.
B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster and Chad Bradley contributed reporting.
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